Oslo made its city center basically car-free • Hacker News Board

Re: Oslo made its city center basically car-free

#281

Post by MBlume » Fri, Jan 25, 2019, 9:30 PM UTC

unionemployee wrote: post #185

danjayh wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, I'm going to argue for just the opposite: Let users of cars pay for the infrastructure they use (through gas and plate taxes), let users of public transit pay for the services and infrastructure they use (through ridership fees). Right now, public transit is heavily subsidized by income taxes and use taxes for cars (at least in my area). I think that if all transit users were forced to pay for their share o…

How would this work when our cities have been so heavily developed to favor the automobile? I'm for road users paying for the roads or access, but public transit is so lightly used in most of the US and there's so little existing infrastructure that it's at a severe disadvantage and can't take advantage network effects or economies of scale. Instead of a train near my house, there's an interstate highway. Our cities…

Fast HOV lanes would make buses go faster, and if the HOV lane's expensive, most people would find taking a bus to use it most economical. Honestly I think if you instituted congestion pricing, Uber/Lyft would reinvent themselves as bus agencies in many cities.

Re: Oslo made its city center basically car-free

#282

Post by graeme » Fri, Jan 25, 2019, 9:31 PM UTC

danjayh wrote: post #228

graeme wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My grandma never had a car in a major pedestrianized city. She lived independently until the age of 92. She took buses and walked everywhere. My other grandmother mostly walked around town. My parents have a car but mostly walk around town. Would I be right in thinking that you come from a car centric area where people don't walk and this lose their ability to get around at a younger age? Perhaps you have difficulty…

I have medical issues that are completely unrelated to lifestyle. Unfortunately, autoimmune issues often don't respond to anything but drugs with horrible side effects.

That's very unfortunate and I'm sorry you have to deal with that.

But what of Rome, and Paris? Do people with your condition live in them? Those cities aren't built around cars, yet have millions of people from all walks of live.

If we make cities built around cars, and people don't walk, then people get more health problems and die younger. That has to be considered alongside cases like yours.

Re: Oslo made its city center basically car-free

#283

Post by throwawaycanada » Fri, Jan 25, 2019, 9:31 PM UTC

apendleton wrote: post #111

danjayh wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm amazed that so many people who consider themselves inclusive in their thoughts don't realize how exclusionary anti-automobile policies are. As someone who suffers from mild arthritis, the trip to the back of a Wal-Mart can be painful for me, and a walk or bike ride across a city block absolutely foreboding. On the bad days, even standing in line at a checkout for an extended period of time can send my knees and h…

I think it's important to recognize, though, that in many cases, heavy road users' road use is subsidized by lighter road users. Roads are expensive both in terms of construction/maintenance and land use, they're mostly not paid for by user fees anymore (gas taxes cover a relatively small share, and same for tolls), and many people benefiting from these subsidies are doing so for lifestyle choice reasons and not out…

You use the words "choosing to live far away" but all that generally means is they are poor. Clearly they should just buy a house and move to downtown San Fransisco like everyone who cares about the environment does.

Re: Oslo made its city center basically car-free

#284

Post by clairity » Fri, Jan 25, 2019, 9:35 PM UTC

BrianHenryIE wrote: post #260

clairity wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

as a multimodal traveler, i generally agree with most of the changes that oslo implemented, but let's not make cars villians. fast personal, point-to-point, at-hand, energy-dense transporation is great! and so is having grass and trees with kids and dogs playing. but there's no need to pit them against each other. so besides leaving some low capacity, slow roads above ground, let's put a few high capacity, fast roads…

> but let's not make cars villians. "Over half of all vehicle trips are between 1 and 10 miles." [1] ~35,000 people die on American roads each year. [2] Let's call a spade a spade. Cars are the villains. The over-reliance on your fast, personal, point-to-point convenience is killing too many people. [1] https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policyinformation/pubs/pl08021/fig4... [2] https://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/Main/index.aspx

no, poor decision making is what kills people. cars are incidental to that (plenty of other machinery are involved in deaths as well).

if you want to reduce vehicle deaths (which have already been steadily declining) make getting a license much harder (e.g., demonstrate true defensive driving skills like both braking and accelerating out of trouble) and develop & enforce better safety laws (i.e., not some proxy like speed, but actually reduce behavior likely to cause death).

besides, we've long collectively accepted the tradeoff that we want fast personal transport more than a perfectly safe transportation environment. life is full of risks, and some risks will always be out of your control no matter what you do. hundreds of people die per year from bathtubs. are we over-reliant on those too?

Re: Oslo made its city center basically car-free

#285

Post by svendbt » Fri, Jan 25, 2019, 9:35 PM UTC

I live in Oslo. Calling it car-free is a stretch.

The city council have done a great deal of improvements - increased frequency of public transport, city bikes, most parking spaces in the inner city are removed (still plenty of private parking garages), paid roadside parking per hour in outer city districts (only residents can park long term) and a $5-$8 toll road around the city. They have also opened up the seaside to the public - you can walk along the sea for from one side of town to the other for hours.

This has definitely made for a much more lively city, but it comes with a hidden cost that is not so easily visible - gentrification.

The lively city with its hundreds of new bars and restaurants are attracting young, educated people, while the difficulties of owning a car drives away the families that need their car to visit their grandparents, go to IKEA, drive to kindergarten on the other side of town etc. Sure, it's possible to use public transport, but everyone who has has small kids know that you do not want to spend an hour to get home with hungry kids.

We (family with two small kids) moved 5 miles out and get the best of both worlds instead. I would never live downtown though.

Re: Oslo made its city center basically car-free

#286

Post by eesmith » Fri, Jan 25, 2019, 9:35 PM UTC

danjayh wrote: post #216

jacobr wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Let users of cars pay for the infrastructure they use Don't forget a fee for the air and noise pollution they cause.

Already in place, via mitigations that have been implemented. Fuel injection, multiple catalytic converters, exhaust gas recycling, and closed-loop control all add substantial expense to modern vehicles. They do, however, very effectively reduce/eliminate the smog problems that we had 30 years ago (which is a good thing). Most modern freeway builds include noise mitigation in their designs. This cost should be passed…

You say "already in place". While it's certainly true that smog isn't anywhere near the problem it once was, it's still a problem, and others still pay for the consequences of automobile emissions.

Some quotes from various sources:

https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-air-pollution-repo... - "Los Angeles remains the nation's leader in harmful ozone pollution from car tailpipes emissions ... but the report said the nation's second-largest city also achieved its best overall air quality score of all those years."

https://www.livestrong.com/article/156537-facts-of-car-pollu... - "The American Lung Association reports that 30,000 people are killed by car emissions annually in the United States alone. Air pollution also causes numerous respiratory and cardiovascular problems and may exacerbate pre-existing conditions such as asthma. More than half of Americans live in areas that fail to meet federal air quality standards at least several days each year."

https://www.pca.state.mn.us/air/motor-vehicle-pollution - "Motor vehicles give off more than half of all carbon monoxide and hydrocarbon emissions in Minnesota. These emissions, including microscopic particles, can contribute to breathing and heart problems along with an elevated risk of cancer."

https://owl.cwp.org/mdocs-posts/elc_pwp6/ - "Metals can follow many pathways before they become entrained in urban stormwater run off. A recent California study sponsored by the Santa Clara Valley Nonpoint Source Program suggests that cars are the dominant loading source for many metals of concern, such as cadmium, chromium, copper, lead, mercury, and zinc."

Re: Oslo made its city center basically car-free

#287

Post by khawkins » Fri, Jan 25, 2019, 9:35 PM UTC

hjnilsson wrote: post #6

Oslo is still heavily lacking in bike accessibility, more so than the article presents. New bike paths are around the periphery of the center. In the city center, there are close to zero bike parking spots. Everyone who wants to take the bike to work, must have parking in the workplace. In addition the tram tracks on many streets are a hazard to taking the bike. But things are improving here slowly Public transport t…

From just looking on Google Maps/street view, it seems like they primarily converted one road into strictly bike traffic, keeping the roads parallel to it typical road traffic. I don't think it's a bad idea, but to pretend like it is now devoid of vehicles is to advocate for a pipe dream fantasy.

In fact, the business pictured at the top corners a 4-lane vehicle traffic road with no bike lanes.

Re: Oslo made its city center basically car-free

#288

Post by fabianhjr » Fri, Jan 25, 2019, 9:36 PM UTC

Just as a general reference on how to design carfree cities, check out this site: http://carfree.com/

Re: Oslo made its city center basically car-free

#289

Post by webv » Fri, Jan 25, 2019, 9:36 PM UTC

themagician wrote: post #8

I want this so bad. My hatred for the automobile grows every day. The cost, the noise, the time wasted in traffic, the pollution, the ridiculous space wasted on parking. When you really add up the costs, both individual and to society, it’s absolutely insane. I wish the cost of gasoline was high enough to internalize all the costs and change behavior. Like really high. A dollar a mile. We are slaves to the automobile…

Portland, OR is halfway there already via mis-management. Nearly every parking space in the downtown core is a construction zone, 7am-7pm delivery zone, 15m quickstop, carshare, taxi zone, police/govmint only, etc. (see also: condo bunkers w/ no parking garages b/c everyone who moves to Portland will ride a bike, right?)

We have a pilot program for scooter share, multiple car-share options, lots of bike-share stations, light rail stations, even a flippin trolly! So they could easily start with a tight area around Pioneer Square and make it ped/scoot/bike-only then expand it out little by little as the businesses discover it's actually a good thing.

But instead we have "vision zero" which is a pretty good description for our city leadership.

Re: Oslo made its city center basically car-free

#290

Post by m-s » Fri, Jan 25, 2019, 9:36 PM UTC

avar wrote: post #119

calcifer wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It doesn't look quite as good with 5-6 shopping bags with groceries for the kids. Here in the Netherlands people seem to have no problems doing exactly that on a bike. Is Oslo any significantly different than, say, Amsterdam? Last week we had all sorts of harsh whether (sub-zero temps, heavy rain, snow) during my morning commute, which didn't seem to affect bike traffic one bit. > Parents in Norway also spend a lot…

I also live in Amsterdam, and while I bike to work every day my wife isn't as confident in the snow and when it snowed this past week took the tram. On that day two full trams passed her stop before she was able to get on one. Something that otherwise never happens in the city. So I think you've got a very different impression of how Amsterdammers stop cycling when there's a bit of snow. My own impression is that the…

Semi-related: Because of a defective transformer some tram services had their frequency reduced in the morning. [1] This has been going on for the entire week and might explain why your wife couldn't get her tram.

[1] https://twitter.com/GVBnieuws/status/1087946558677635073